The strike by movie and TV writers may be over after a tentative deal was reached with producers. In a letter posted on both unions’ websites today, Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) President Michael Winship and Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) President Patric Verrone said the deal:
- protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, “When they get paid, we get paid.”
The writers will discuss the terms of the agreement at membership meetings on both coasts today.
Officials of the WGAE, WGAW and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have been meeting informally since Jan. 24, the first meetings between the two sides since the producers walked out of negotiations in December.
In the letter, Winship and Verrone said the strikers’ “resolve, determination and perseverance,” led to the settlement:
- Less than six months ago, the AMPTP wanted to enact profit-based residuals, defer all Internet compensation in favor of a study, forever eliminate “distributor’s gross” valuations, and enforce 39 pages of rollbacks to compensation, pension and health benefits, reacquisition, and separated rights. Today, thanks to three months of physical resolve, determination and perseverance, we have a contract that includes WGA jurisdiction and separated rights in new media, residuals for Internet reuse, enforcement and auditing tools, expansion of fair market value and distributor’s gross language, improvements to other traditional elements of the MBA and no rollbacks.
- Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success.
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Channels: Organizing & Bargaining
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